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THE prime suspect behind the demise of the dinosaurs has been let off the hook, after NASA revealed yesterday that the family of asteroids commonly blamed for the extinction probably was not responsible.
While scientists still believe a large meteor crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs, the widely-held Baptistina theory now appears to have been all but ruled out.

Since 2007 it has been widely believed that the giant asteroid Baptistina crashed into another asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter about 160 million years ago, sending shattered pieces as big as mountains flying - including one that, many millions of years later, hit Earth.

But "as a result of the WISE science team's investigation, the demise of the dinosaurs remains in the cold case files," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near Earth Object (NEO) Observation Program.